


owning heaven

by shuofthewind



Series: Le Monde Solaire [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Elf Culture & Customs, F/F, F/M, Female Bilbo, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuofthewind/pseuds/shuofthewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bluebell Baggins isn't a very good hobbit. Good thing she's in good company.</p><p>[<em>She’s not a fool, because she knows the same way she knows her own name that Tauriel is the one Kíli loves. She knows that Tauriel is drawn to him—confusedly, hopefully, desperately drawn, the same way Blue is, and Blue is not stupid enough to think to get in the way of that. A story like that, that’s for the ages. There’s no place for a hobbit to squeeze between them. She will not try.</em>]</p>
            </blockquote>





	owning heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'ed. Bite me.

When Thranduil enters the Lonely Mountain, it is with a fleet of guards at his back.

It has been three days since the Battle of Five Armies, and Blue still aches. Her shoulder throbs underneath her clothing, her arm bound tight against her ribs by thick bandages. A goblin had pulled her arm out of its socket on the second morning, screeching gleefully at the sound of her screams. Kíli had been the one to shoot it down, Fíli the one to push her shoulder back into joint, but it still aches and pounds and is terribly sore. It also keeps her from knitting or mending, which means that as she sits in the corner of the throne room, watching Thranduil and the Master barter over the gold of Erebor, she cannot do anything to steady herself.

Thorin has not yet awakened. He lies asleep, the wound to his head bound in sheer white gauze. Fíli, however, has recovered just enough to take his uncle’s place at the bargaining table, and he is ably advised by Balin and Gandalf, respectively. He looks royal in truth, now, a prince with his hair and mustache laced through with Durin silver and sapphires. The gilt can’t hide the bruises under his eyes or the way he winces when he shifts his broken ribs, but since he stays seated most days, she can’t do much to scold him for it.

She wouldn’t be here at all if he hadn’t asked her to. “The elves like you,” he says as she helps Óin wrap his torso. She only has one usable hand, so she mostly just passes the bandage from one of Óin’s hands to the other, letting the healer do most of the work. “Please. Dwalin will watch over Uncle and Kíli for the day. Just… _please_.”

Blue agrees, because it’s Fíli and he needs her, but leaving the sickroom where Thorin barely breathes and Kíli (Kíli, Kíli, _Kíli_ ) lays still as death feels as though the trolls have truly ripped her apart.

Thranduil’s lip curls to see her, a halfling with tattered, scorched curls who has refused the treasures of the mountain, but his son Legolas Greenleaf inclines his head. Blue and Legolas never spoke, when Blue had been haunting the halls of Mirkwood, but she is certain judging by the way his eyes flicker towards Tauriel that Tauriel has talked of her. Tauriel herself dips into a small, subtle bow, and Blue sees her hands flex on the grip of her bow. For a breathless, stupid moment Blue thinks of crossing the room to her and hiding her face in Tauriel’s stomach, letting herself cry the way she can’t around the dwarves, but then she shakes herself free of it, and bows back.

If Thranduil notices that his captain of the guard appears to be acquainted with the company’s pet halfling, he makes no mention of it.

At about noon, the debate is paused for food and drink and, in Blue’s case, a breath of fresh air. She slides off the stool beside Gandalf’s chair (Fíli has placed her between Gandalf and Beorn, the two most capable of protecting her if things go wrong, and she would throw something at his head if her dominant arm hadn’t been trapped in bandages) and wanders out of the room. The twists and turns of the mountain tunnels are becoming second nature to her now, even if there are only three rooms she truly visits.

Blue steps out onto the balcony near the healing hall, and closes her eyes. The thrushes and the ravens have returned to the roosts that were carved into the mountain long ago, and the sound of their voices is comforting. The view, however, is not. It hits her like a hammer to the ribs, the sheer _vastness_ of the destruction: bodies still litter the fields, and smoke curls into the sky. The tents of the armies—Thranduil, Dáin, Bard, and her own dwarves, her own precious, precious dwarves—flutter with flags in the breeze, but the earth beneath them is cracked and rent by dragon fire decades past. Blue steps to the edge of the balcony and closes her free hand around the railing, ignoring the bite of cold marble against her fingers. It will be at least a year, quite probably more, before the land around the Lonely Mountain will recover from Smaug’s wrath. She doesn’t think she will see it, but she likes to imagine. Rolling orchards and verdant grass; herds of sheep and cattle supervised by ravens and thrushes, travelers resting in the protective shadow of the mountain. A kingdom returned to its people.

She would not have heard Tauriel behind her if the she-elf had not intentionally scuffed her boot against stone. It still startles her terribly; Blue whips around, grasping for a weapon, and then cries out when it tugs at muscles that are still too sore to be used. Tauriel’s cool hand cups the back of her neck. “ _Îdh_ ,” Tauriel says, her thumb brushing lightly against Blue’s throat. “Peace, little _aew_. I mean no harm.”

“Tauriel.” Blue closes her eyes and lets out a breath. She shivers, and pretends it’s because of the breeze. “You startled me. I’m—I’ve been a bit jumpy, lately.”

“You have good reason.” Tauriel’s hand slips away, and she stands at attention, her long fox hair curling around her collarbones. “The battle was not one for gentle folk, and no matter how much you have grown, there is nothing quite like your first.”

“No,” says Blue. “No, there isn’t, quite.”

They stand in silence for a moment. Blue rubs her thumb against the ring in her pocket, thoughtfully. She still isn’t sure if it was a mistake in Mirkwood to call upon Tauriel for aid. In all honesty, she still thinks she was more than a bit mad to do it—ask an elf for help, and a captain of Thranduil’s guard at that! A foolish decision, but one from the heart. Certainly one that resulted in weapons and freedom quicker than Blue could have found alone.

Blue isn’t sure, but she thinks Tauriel may have done it for Kíli. Blue might have helped plant the seeds in her head— _leave the dragon unmolested, and the whole of Mirkwood may burn; let us complete our mission, let us destroy the beast, and I swear to you the dwarves of Erebor will not disgrace your forest halls again so long as I am alive_ —but it was the shadow of Kíli that had driven Tauriel to action. Though she thinks she and Tauriel may be friends, of a sort.

She turns. Tauriel is gazing over the battlefield, her eyebrows drawn together. There’s a gloom under her eyes that Blue doesn’t like. “I did not expect this outcome, _aew_ , when we struck our bargain in the shadows.”

“I didn’t either.” Blue shifts her bound arm uncomfortably. “I don’t believe anyone could have. Greed taints all races equally, and the orcs and wargs and goblins…well, they were a surprise.”

Tauriel snorts, and hooks a strand of hair behind her pointed ear. “Not particularly, considering I hear that a member of your company slayed the Goblin King, and that you yourself faced down the Defiler in defense of your King Under The Mountain.”

Blue flushes. “Well, I mean—I’d have done it for any of them—but—well—yes, I did. I suppose.”

Kíli had been furious afterwards. After the sudden startling sight of Erebor from the Carrock, he’d drawn her aside, taken her by the shoulders, and shaken her until she’d nearly seen stars before burying his face in her hair. She can still feel the way the muscles in his arms trembled as he held her, as if he were terrified she’d vanish, and from that day on he’d insisted that she keep her bedroll between him and Fíli. “Just in case,” he’d said, and his eyes had been too dark for her to deny him.

The next morning she’d woken with his arm flung over the curve of her waist, and she’d flushed so horribly red that Óin had checked her for a fever. Twice.

Tauriel nudges her gently with the back of her wrist, and Blue jolts out of memory. “It was well done, halfling,” she says. “To throw oneself into danger in defense of another is no small thing.”

“Especially when that other is Thorin Oakenshield, King of Grumps, you mean?”

Tauriel snorts again, and lifts a hand to hide her smile. “I did not say that.”

“Elves are talented at saying much without ever saying anything,” says Blue. Then her ears go hot and she looks away. Tauriel is not her friend, not really, and she is certainly not someone Blue should feel so comfortable with that she can joke.  She closes her eyes again, and breathes. In and out. Slow and deep. Beside her, Tauriel smells of sage oil and the leather of her armor, of growing things and the shadows in Mirkwood. Blue feels as though her insides are quaking.

“You must think me very forward,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“Peace, little bird. We have shared sleeping quarters. I think you are entitled to a bit of teasing.”

She wants to hide her face in her hands. “If you can call you forcing me to use your cot _sharing_ anything. I don’t think you slept at all.”

“I did, a little. I am well-used to sleeping upright.” Tauriel pauses. “You needed it more than I, and I would not have denied you it, even if you were an invader. A half-starved halfling with hollow cheeks and spider’s webs in her hair, unconscious on my floor. If you were in the bed, I could keep a better eye on you.” Her lips purse. “Though I still do not know how you vanished, after.”

Blue blushes redder. “It was an accident. The fainting, I mean. I’d not eaten in three days, which is very bad for a hobbit.”

“A hobbit with an elvish blade and dwarvish braids. You were a puzzle, Blue Baggins, but when you woke you chirped like a bird and blinked at me and said, ‘Are you going to kill me now or later? Because I’d rather see the dragon dead first.’” Tauriel sighs. “You had every reason to fear elves after our treatment of your brethren, and yet you were not frightened.”

“Well, I mean, I was. Terribly. I’d not meant to fall asleep and certainly not without hiding myself.” She’d thumbed the ring off when she’d entered what she thought was an abandoned guest room, too cold to do otherwise. “But I’d seen you speak to Kíli, and to the others, and I knew you were…well, not kinder, but not so willing to kill us, I suppose. Not like Legolas.”

“My prince is headstrong and set in his ways.” Tauriel hums a little. “But he is not all bad.”

“Funny, so are mine. All three of them,” Blue adds slyly, and Tauriel nudges her with the back of her wrist again, a funny little smile quirking at her lips.

“Your sons of Durin are hardier than most, though I hear…” She licks her lips. “I hear that the youngest prince still lies asleep.”

Blue passes a hand over her face, and ignores the funny clenching in her heart. “You saved his life, on the battlefield, but he took a terrible strike. Óin says he’ll wake, but…”

She refuses to think of how he twitches in his nightmares. He seems caught in them, trapped inside, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Before the battle, before Erebor but after the Carrock, there had been many a time when she’d woken with Fíli dead quiet and Kíli jerking with the curse of bad dreams. She’d stroked his hair until he settled again, and once when she’d startled awake thinking a warg was at her throat, she’d found him watching her sleepily in the dark, playing with the end of her braid. It had seemed a midnight sort of secret, one not to ever be mentioned in the light of day, and so she had not, and neither had he. Perhaps he didn’t even remember.

Tauriel brushes her fingertips against Blue’s good shoulder. “He is fortunate,” she says in a quiet voice, “to have one who cares for him as you do.”

“Oh, _me_.” Blue turns to stare at the thrush nests. “I didn’t do much of anything, not to—not to keep him from getting hurt or anything. You’re the one who kept the orcs off him when he fell. And Legolas saved Thorin. I did nothing.”

“Nothing?” Tauriel’s eyebrows march up into her hairline. “You, who bound the four armies together into one; you, who rescued the Crown Prince from a warg by driving a knife into its throat; you did nothing?”

Blue turns horridly red. Her ears feel ready to burst into flame. She mumbles something under her breath that even she can’t decipher, and then says, “Fíli would have rescued himself. I just stumbled around and managed to get into trouble.”

“I doubt he sees it that way. Erebor’s princes seem to value you very highly, _aew_.”

Blue goes to shrug, and then stops herself. Her shoulder hurts enough as it is. “They shouldn’t. They’ll forget me, and that’s as it should be. Why do you call me _aew_?”

“Are you not one? A small bird, fast and cunning?” Tauriel frowns, and then glances at the battlefield again. "Perhaps I should call you _maethor_ , instead, little warrior. Or _calad_ , for brightness.”

“I’d not known elves to be such flatterers.”

Tauriel shrugs. “Truth is never flattery.”

Blue digests that. It isn’t the truth, no matter what Tauriel seems to think. A lot of things would have gone much better if Blue had never joined the company at all; she can’t be a warrior or a beacon of light or anything like that, and something in her guts clenches at the idea of this beautiful elf-maid thinking she is something more than just a hobbit. “I like _aew_ ,” she says eventually.

Tauriel inclines her head once, and they are quiet again for a time.

“Why did you follow me?” Blue says, once her skin begins to prickle with goosebumps. “You’re here to guard Thranduil, won’t you get into terrible trouble talking to me instead?”

“I am already in terrible trouble. A little more won’t hurt. Besides, Legolas is more than capable of keeping his father safe, and I doubt any attacks will be coming from those within the mountain.” Tauriel scrapes her boot over stone again. “I had not thought dwarf halls would be so beautiful. There are echoes of the Greenwood in this place.”

“The elves of the Greenwood and the dwarves of Erebor used to be close companions. Maybe they can be again.”

Tauriel gives Blue another sideways, slanting look, and then inclines her head. “Perhaps they can be.”

“Kíli cares very much for you, you know,” Blue says, before she can second-guess herself. “I noticed it in Mirkwood. He is…very poor at hiding his feelings for people.”

She thinks she sees a dash of pink in Tauriel’s cheeks. When she looks again, though, it’s gone. “He is…unique among dwarrow.”

“Not really. He throws dishes and plays jokes and loves gold as much as any other dwarf.” Blue tilts her head to the side. “And like any other dwarf, once he chooses someone, he never goes back on his choice.”

Tauriel seems to be struggling for words. She ducks her head, and her hair swings forward to hide her face. “Why do you speak of him thus to me?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Blue swipes her palm once last time over the marble railing, and then steps back. “I should go inside. Gandalf wanted me to speak to the ravens. For some reason, they’ll only treat with me. I think it’s because I give them jerky.”

Tauriel opens her mouth, as if she’s about to speak, but Blue’s a coward. She darts back inside, and closes one hand tight in the cloth over her heart. The spot beneath her breastbone aches like a bruise.

She has to hide in an empty room to get control of her breathing again before she returns to the council chambers.

.

.

.

She’s not a fool. She knows she’s softer towards Kíli than she is towards the rest of the dwarves. He seems to have burrowed into her heart like an odd, smiling worm. How could he not? The first to accept her in the company, the first to call her friend. The first (and often the only) out of all of them to go out of his way to make her laugh. Kíli is joy, bright and smiling and true, and hobbits have a soft spot for joy in all guises. She loves him without thinking about it, without even considering that it might be wrong, because she can’t _not_.

Tauriel is different. She barely knows Tauriel. A few stolen conversations while wearing her ring, and that single stupid moment when she’d felt safe enough to sleep with the captain of Thranduil’s guard watching her. But there’s a low curling burn in her blood when she catches Tauriel looking at her during council sessions, a whole new kind of dragon fire, and Blue doesn’t know what to do with it. Tauriel is _beautiful_ , and Blue is…not.

She’s not a fool, because she knows the same way she knows her own name that Tauriel is the one Kíli loves. She knows that Tauriel is drawn to him—confusedly, hopefully, desperately drawn, the same way Blue is, and Blue is not stupid enough to think to get in the way of that. A story like that, that’s for the ages.

There’s no place for a hobbit to squeeze between them. She will not try.

She will help Erebor begin again, and then she will go home. She will be happy for Kíli, her best friend, and she will forget this strange burning in her skin when she looks at Tauriel, and she will go home. And that, she thinks, that will be the end of it.

.

.

.

Blue is in the strange foggy place between waking and sleeping when she feels someone touch her hair. She’s taken to leaving it loose around the mountain, aside from the single braid Kíli put in ages ago, and it’s tangled over her face in her sleep. The touch is soft, tentative, warm; a palm against the back of her head, a thumb against the edge of her ear. Blue hums, low in her throat, and shifts against the edge of the cot, opening her eyes slowly.

She is in the healing hall. It’s one of the few places in the mountain to let in fresh light and clean air, and the high windows are sparkling with raindrops when she turns. Kíli’s awake, his eyes half-lidded and the corners of his mouth turned up. His fingertips tangle in her hair again, gently. Blue looks at him, and her mind whites out. She thinks she ought to say something, but all she can do is close her eyes and let out a long, trembly sigh.

“Sorry,” says Kíli after a moment. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Didn’t mean to wake me.” Her voice cracks a little. She sits up straighter, and his hand falls free of her hair. The braid that he’d woven behind her ear tumbles into the light, laced at the end with three glinting beads—one to mark her as a friend of Erebor, one to say she is an ally of dwarrow, and one that Kíli had meant as a joke. _A flower for a gardener_ , he’d said. _You can start your own family tradition_. And she’d been so charmed by the idea that she’d let him set it in her hair, even if Dwalin had grumbled at the sight of it. “You’re the one who’s been asleep for a week. _Didn’t mean to wake me_ , he says. I could _kill_ you.” Or kiss him, or press her face into the crook of his neck and weep, or all three, she’s not sure, but he’s alive, he’s _alive_ , and she dashes tears from her eyes. “Y’great lump, don’t ever scare me like that again! A week, blast you!”

Kíli’s eyes widen. He’s weak as a kitten against the pillows; she suspects it took most of the strength he had to rub his fingers through her hair like that, and she can’t think why he would. Dwarrow do seem to have quite an attachment to hair, though. She discounts it. “A week? But how—”

She can see the moment the memories start to come back. His eyes darken, and then close. One hand clenches into a fist on the blankets. Blue reaches out and covers it with both her own, barely realizing that her fingers are trembling. “No,” she says. “They’re fine, they’re all fine. Thorin’s asleep, but—but Gandalf says he’ll wake soon.” They hope. “Everyone else is well. Fíli was injured, but he’s getting better. Bofur lost a finger but it’s over. It’s fine. It’s _fine_.”

Kíli’s eyes snap open again. He searches her face, eyelashes fluttering a little. “What about you?”

“I’m fine.” His eyes drop to her shoulder, and she pinks. “Well, mostly. This will get better. It’s just sore, really.”

The tenseness in his face doesn’t vanish, but it fades a little. Blue bites her lip, and then she reaches out, brushing her palm over his cheek. He leans into the touch, already sleepy again. “I should tell Óin you’re awake,” she says. “And Fíli. He’ll want to know.”

“Stay,” says Kíli in a hoarse voice. “Please.”

“But what if you’re—”

“I’m all right.” He shakes his head, and presses into her palm. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve had worse than this. Just—stay.” His eyelids are drooping already. “Please.”

She can’t say no. Blue wavers, and then nods. Kíli lifts one hand and plucks feebly at her fingers on his cheek. “Stay,” he says again, and when he tugs her forward to the cot she doesn’t resist.

Kíli isn’t tall compared to Dwalin, but he’s larger than she is. Her head fits neatly under his chin, her nose pressed close to his collarbone. Blue swallows hard when she hears him let out a sigh, lifting his arm with difficulty and tangling his fingers in her hair again. “Stop moving,” she says, and nearly pinches him before she remembers all the bruises on his ribs. “You’ll pull your stitches.”

“Aye, Miss Boggins,” he says, but there’s a contentment in his voice that she can’t remember hearing before. Kíli lets out a long sigh, wincing a little at the tug on his lungs, and then he stills. He’s asleep within moments, breathing soft and deep, and finally Blue reaches out and sets her fingertips over his heart. It beats strong and sure, steady as the Brandywine, and relief makes her melt. This is _real_ , she realizes. This is real and he’s awake and he’s _alive_. She should send for Fíli, for Óin, for someone to check him over, but she might wake him if she moves, and this sleep is deep and true and natural. She won’t take it from him.

She lies awake and watches him breathe, instead.

.

.

.

Kíli recovers very slowly. Blue has been keeping an eye on him ever since she entered the healing tent on the battlefield and found him with the sword through his ribs, sliding through, ruining organs and cracking bone. He is alive, she knows, because of Legolas Greenleaf. She doesn’t know what Legolas or the Mirkwood healers did to save him, but she will always be grateful for it.

He stays in bed for another two and a half weeks after he wakes. When Thranduil and the Master hear that another of Erebor’s princes has come back from the brink of death (not Thorin, who lies in deep pale sleep) there’s some squawking about the legitimacy of Fíli being the negotiator until Beorn intervenes. Blue doesn’t think she’ll ever quite forget the sight of Bard staring down the bear, and it still makes her stomach quiver to think of it. If she’s not with Fíli, listening to the debate over Erebor and its treasures, then she’s in the healing hall trying to keep Kíli from climbing the walls. Bofur joins her sometimes. He’s relearning how to play the flute with a missing finger, and Kíli curses them when the botched notes make him laugh. “Pulls my stitches,” he says, and rubs his thumb over the inside of Blue’s wrist when she scolds Bofur for teasing.

She supposes it was inevitable that she would find Tauriel there eventually, but for some reason (perhaps her own carefully-developed brand of denial) Blue doesn’t expect it. They have their heads close together, the pair of them, talking in voices so low that Blue can’t make out a word. She stops dead in the doorway, and somehow, neither of them notice. She’s never seen Tauriel look so tender, and the expression on Kíli’s face is like starlight, soft and silvery. As she watches, his fingers come up and brush against the line of Tauriel’s jaw, as if he can’t quite dare to do it.

Blue swallows hard, and leaves.

She’s happy about it, which might be the worst part. Kíli is her friend, her best, closest friend. She can’t _not_ be happy for him, seeing that look of joy and wonder on his face. And Tauriel, Tauriel of the fire hair and the beautiful smile; she might not be Blue’s friend, exactly, but she can’t be _unhappy_ for her. Tauriel is amazing, fierce and true and loyal and just plain _good_ , and exactly sort of person that Kíli should love.  She’s fine being their friend, their companion. She’s always been the odd one out; she’s come to expect it, to appreciate it in a strange sort of way. She can take her joy in other things—in the rejuvenation of Erebor’s fields, in the reconstruction going on in the mines and the halls the dragon destroyed. In the building of close ties between the renewed dwarven kingdom and the soon to be resurrected city of Dale. In her friends, in her work. She doesn’t need love like that to be whole.

Her eyes burn, but she does not cry. Blue heads out to the balcony, and one of the thrushes lands on her shoulder, brushing its wings against her ear. She watches the sun set, and by the time darkness falls over Erebor, she is settled again.

The next time she sees Tauriel at Kíli’s bedside, she joins them, and cajoles both into playing a game of cards.

She can manage this. She _will_.

And then she will go home.

.

.

.

It takes one month, seventeen days, and sixteen hours for Thorin to wake up. To this day Blue is not exactly sure what made him do it; she doesn’t know, and doesn’t wish to know, what Gandalf did to keep Thorin clinging to life after the Battle of the Five Armies, doesn’t want to know what happened to the Arkenstone. But when Thorin opens his eyes, he’s not mad with goldlust; he’s clear and sharp and grumpy as always. He stumbles over his apologies like a fauntling but looks up at her with hope and regret in his face, and Blue presses his hand between both of hers (her shoulder has healed well) and pretends that she’s not crying. They have an impromptu party right there in the healing halls that night, the whole of the Company.

By the end of the week, the discussions are over with. Fíli has done marvelously, and everyone leaves without grumbling—or if they do grumble, they don’t do it too loudly. Even after Thranduil, Dáin, and Bard leave, a number of people from each of the armies remain behind, for the express purpose of bringing Erebor back into the world.

Tauriel is one of them.

It seems that Tauriel is very, very determined that they be friends. Blue can’t turn around some days without catching a flash of fox-red hair. It’s…strange, she decides eventually, but it’s not unwelcome. If she and Tauriel become friends, then everything will be easier.

And it _is_ easy. Tauriel is vivid as a sunset, sharp-tongued and witty. Belladonna had told her once that wood-elves walk in starlight, but Tauriel is a comet—fierce and fiery and real. Being friends with her is easy. And if the casual touches Tauriel seems to regard as status quo make her skin itch and her breathing catch, sometimes, then that is no one’s business but Blue’s.

 _Greedy_ , a sibilant voice says in the back of her head. _Selfish and greedy. Don’t you have enough_?

Odd as it sounds, she’s had more practice burying what Kíli does to her. He’s her friend, her best friend, and if he reaches out to her more than is quite proper by hobbit standards, well, then it’s a funny quirk of the dwarrow. That, or it’s just Kíli. She thinks it might be just Kíli. Fíli will ruffle her hair sometimes, and Ori will press her hand if he’s particularly daring, but Kíli—Kíli reaches out for her, loops his arm around her, presses his face into her shoulder to hide his laughter. The Laughing Prince, she thinks, and ignores the looks that the Iron Hill dwarves keep giving her, curious and a little unsettled, as if she’s something strange.

She’s never quite thought about how often she reaches out to Kíli in turn until she realizes she might not be able to anymore. She turns and expects him to be there, laughing. Every time she trips over her tongue, she pauses, as if she’s waiting for him to make a joke. She shoots awake from nightmares and wonders why he isn’t near, fingers carding through her hair, sleepy and thoughtful. She’s used to him _being_ there, and it must come from the close quarters that they all shared during the journey to Erebor, but having him _not_ be there is…well.

They’re easy. It’s easy to be with them. It hurts, because she wants what she oughtn’t, and dreams what she shouldn’t, but it would be so much harder if she couldn’t know them, if she had to leave. This way, it’s easier, because it reminds her that what she really, truly cares about is them, as people; their friendship _matters_ , in a way few things do, and suddenly there _is_ a them, a Kíli-Blue-and-Tauriel them, and even if it’s odd, it’s content.

One afternoon they take to the large, empty hall that Thorin calls the Rose Walk. There aren’t any roses there, precisely, but the walls are carved all over with lovely images of flowers of all sorts. Blue’s repainting them as Kíli plans new inlays, gold and gems and lapis lazuli. Right now, though, he’s dozing (well, sort of) with his head on Tauriel’s thigh. Tauriel is watching Blue layer paint into one of the rosebuds.

That is, she _was_ , until Blue makes the silly mistake of mentioning archery.

“You do not know how to shoot?” says Tauriel, and her eyebrows lift. Blue flushes pink.

“Well, I mean—” she shrugs helplessly. “There wasn’t much opportunity to learn, in the Shire, and I only just managed to get the hang of throwing knives before we fell into Goblin Town—”

“You have neglected our hobbit,” says Tauriel to Kíli, carding her fingers through his hair absently. Kíli leans back into the touch, frowning.

“Not _intentionally_ , Mistress Bossy. I tried, when we were traveling, but she wouldn’t let me.”

“There wasn’t an extra bow! I wasn’t about to borrow yours!”

“Why not? It’s a decent bow.”

Kíli squawks. “ _Decent_?”

“But it’s _his_ ,” Blue says. “And—and like I said, there wasn’t much time or opportunity, and we traveled so much every day—”

“What d’you mean, _decent—_ ”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“—know how long I worked to make that bow? It’s _perfect—_ ”

“Hush.” Tauriel tweaks his hair. “It is a lovely bow. I only meant it is a decent size for Miss Baggins to begin on, though the draw might be too heavy.”

Kíli sniffs, and closes his eyes again, mollified. Tauriel goes back to braiding his hair.

“There isn’t much call for weapons, in the Shire.” Blue dabs her paintbrush back onto her palette and adds a touch of yellow to the tips of the rose petal she’s working on. “A few decades ago the Brandywine froze, and orcs and wargs came across and attacked Hobbiton and Tookland, but the Rangers defended us. That’s when I learned to throw knives; I can stay far out of reach, to be safe, and knives are simple enough to get a hold of even in a small place like the Shire. Bows are different.”

Tauriel hums.

“I suppose I really should have learned something more than that, once we started for Erebor.” She frowns at the rose, and then adds a bit more red. Just a touch, not enough to overwhelm it, but enough to make it warmer. “But somehow in spite of everything—or because of everything, I don’t know—I just…never remembered to ask.”

“We will teach you now, then,” says Tauriel, and finishes her braid in Kíli’s hair. It’s not quite in the elvish style, but it’s not dwarven either, an odd sort of blending between the two with thin braids and thick ones interlaced. There’s just enough of Kíli’s hair left free that he looks like himself, all mussed and pouting as Tauriel eases him off of her leg and stands, brushing stone dust off of her trousers. “Come on, Miss Baggins. No, you stay there, Kíli, I’ll not risk you ripping yourself open again trying to draw a bow too heavy for you, after all this time spent healing.”

“Bossy,” says Kíli again under his breath. Blue presses one hand to her throat.

“No, I couldn’t—”

“Nonsense,” says Tauriel. “Even if the battle is over, you never know what the world will offer, Miss Baggins. You ought to keep practicing. And learning a new weapon is never detrimental.”

“I—but—”

“Come,” says Tauriel, and she holds out a hand to Blue. Blue glances once at Kíli, who seems singularly unperturbed, before she takes it. She expects Tauriel to let go once she’s on her feet again, but instead the elf laces their fingers together, and tugs her forward. “I believe I saw one that may fit you in the armory. Will you move?” she adds, glancing at Kíli. He waves his hand airily.

“I’d rather not have the pair of you gang up on me. I’ll stay right where I am.”

Tauriel’s eyes crinkle. “Good. You learn well.”

“I have good teachers,” he says, and his eyes flick from one of them to the other before he settles himself down for a nap. Blue lets herself be tugged along, and wonders if she’s missing something.

.

.

.

A fortnight after her lessons begin, she returns to her room to find a lovely mahogany bow lying on her bed, alongside a quiver of arrows. There’s no note, but it’s carved with Durin’s seven stars and the creeping, flowering ivy of Mirkwood, and it’s very clear who it’s from.

Blue sits beside it, strokes the wood, and swallows hard.

.

.

.

The land around Erebor is stubbornly refusing to take the grass seed. The ash should be a good base for it, offering a cushion for the seeds, protection and nutrition both, but something about dragon fire seems to have corrupted the earth, and it’s giving Blue a headache. She wanders the hills most days, sometimes alone, sometimes with Fíli or Dwalin if they offer, other times with Kíli or Tauriel if they invite themselves along, and she tries to think her way out of it. Nights are spent reading what little of Erebor’s non-Khuzdul library survived, wondering if there’s something she can use to spark an idea that will solve it all.

She’s playing chess with Balin by the library fireplace when Tauriel sticks her head in. At first she thinks it’s an accident—Kíli had mentioned something about a walk after dinner, and even if it made Thorin’s lips vanish into a thin line, nobody had objected—but then Tauriel pads her way over to the chess table, and waits. Balin’s eyes flicker from Tauriel to Blue and back again, and then he puts Blue in check. “Milady Tauriel,” he says, looking at the board. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Tauriel actually bites her lip. She stares at Balin, and Balin stares back. Then she turns, and cocks her head at Blue. “It is…it is not an urgent matter, exactly, but I would speak with you. May we walk?”

Blue glances at Balin, and then knocks over her king. “You win,” she says. “Not that you weren’t going to anyway.”

Balin chuckles. “Y’came close to trapping my queen this time, lass. You’re improving.”

She kisses his cheek, ignoring his embarrassed sputter, and then turns to Tauriel. “Come on,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to explore the undercity, anyway.”

Erebor used to be called the Land of Silver Fountains, and once Blue wanders beyond the furthest scorchings of dragon fire she finally understands why. Erebor is a kingdom of stone, but the dwarves of Thror’s mountain were too close to the people of Dale to not appreciate the art and glory of water. The fountains run dry now, but she can imagine what they would have been like, before Smaug came to the mountain. Wide flat bowls with the landscape carved into the metal; interlocking rings of silver where water would spill like songs. Tauriel turns down one hallway, and then another, heading deeper into the uninhabited parts of the mountain. Blue follows without comment, glad that she wore trousers today instead of her skirts. There are great piles of shale and dust in the unused parts of Erebor, and she’s torn a skirt or two already clambering over it all.

Finally the passage widens out into a great hall, every wall layered with windows and doors and rooms carved delicately out of the rock. Blue uses a knocked-over bench to step up onto the edge of one of the marble pools, the one with silver inlaid in carved dwarvish runes. They’re far, far out of range of anyone who might hear them, and if it were anyone other than Tauriel to bring her so far off of the marked path, she would be concerned. But it _is_ Tauriel, so she isn’t.

Beside her, Tauriel turns slowly on the spot, her eyes tracing the lines of the arching pillars and swooping ceilings. She licks her lips. “I did not know that the lower levels were so beautiful.”

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like before the dragon.” Blue kicks a rock, and it clatters against the bottom of the marble pool. “Seeing it now I can understand why Thorin longed for it, all this time, and why he’d risk everything to get it back.”

Tauriel hums, and folds her hands behind her back. Blue rubs one of her new scars, a fleck of a thing on the inside of her wrist from her fall into the goblin tunnels, and waits.

“You are avoiding me,” says Tauriel after a minute. Blue opens her mouth, and then closes it again. “Since the gift. You will not meet my eyes. If I enter a room, you leave it. You attempt to be subtle, but it occurs. If I have offended you with my regard,” she continues, turning to look Blue in the face, and Blue jumps when she realizes that by standing on the edge of the fountain, she is almost eye to eye with Tauriel, almost one of the Big Folk herself, “I apologize. I do not know what I can do to earn your forgiveness, but I—I desire to do so.”

Blue gapes like a fish for a moment. Then she swallows. “You—” Her mouth is dry. “You haven’t offended me, Tauriel. You have done nothing that requires forgiveness.”

Tauriel’s eyes flicker. “And yet you have been avoiding me.”

She doesn’t know what to say. Blue looks away, towards the wall of what must have been a house, once upon a time. Now it’s laced over with moss and broken stone, neglected and cold. She licks her lips. “Probably.”

“Why?”

Blue looks back at Tauriel, and rubs her hands together, trying to get the blood flowing in her fingers again. “Because I’m selfish.”

Tauriel tilts her head again, crosses her arms over her chest, and waits. Her lungs go tight. Blue closes her eyes. People don’t _ask_ these things in the Shire. If someone avoids another person it’s—it’s not on to ask about it. Why couldn’t elves be more like hobbits? “I don’t mean to be,” she says finally, hating the way her voice catches. “I like you, Tauriel, I do. I just…”

She scrubs her sweaty palms on the cloth of her trousers. The words just won’t come. Blue blinks furiously, and realizes with a jolt that her eyes are burning. She’s not going to _cry_. She’s not going to cry over such a silly little thing like this. She will _not_ cry.

“What selfishness do you attempt to spare me from?”

“Not just you,” says Blue.

Something, some shadow, lifts in Tauriel’s eyes. She sighs. “Kíli.”

“Kíli,” Blue repeats, and closes her eyes. There. She hasn’t said any of it, not a word, but she’s said _something_ , and it’s there, and Tauriel is watching her with a look she can’t read. She flinches. “Please don’t tell him.”

“I will not,” says Tauriel solemnly. “It is not my place.”

“And it’s not mine, either.” Blue scrubs at her eyes. “I’m just—I’m just me. I’ll be here for a little while longer, and then I have to go home. I can stay in Lake-Town, maybe, with Bard and his family, so I can fix the hills, and then I’ll go back to the Shire and you won’t ever have to worry about me again, I’m sorry that I didn’t—”  

“No.” Tauriel looks horrified. She reaches out, and brushes her thumb over Blue’s cheekbone, and it’s only then that Blue realizes she’s crying. “No, please don’t. I would not—I would not see you hurting, like this. I will go.”

“No you blasted well _won’t_ ,” Blue snaps. Then she freezes, because Tauriel is there, Tauriel is _right_ there, and she chokes. The touch feels like flame on her skin. She swallows, and Tauriel sees it. Tauriel reaches up with her other hand, touching her fingertips to the line of Blue’s jaw. Blue shivers in spite of herself, and closes her eyes, unable to keep herself from panting.

“You’re shaking,” says Tauriel in a low voice that Blue’s never heard before. “Why?”

Blue clenches her hands into fists in an effort to keep from just _touching_ , from reaching out to see what that hair feels like. “Because I’m selfish."

Tauriel presses her hand flat to Blue’s cheek. When she breaths out, Blue can taste it on her mouth, the warmth of it and the touch of dampness from behind her lips. “Tell me,” she says, and strokes her fingers up Blue’s arm to her throat. “Please.”

“Why are you—”

“Please,” says Tauriel again, and Blue closes her eyes. She’s quaking, the dragon fire roaring high, and she can’t breathe. She can’t _breathe_. “You—tell me I am not mad, to think that there is something here. Curling like fire. Tell me that I don’t imagine it.”

Her heart pounds in her chest. Blue lifts her hands and wraps her fingers tight around Tauriel’s wrists. She hasn’t been this mad with longing since she was a tween and fumbling behind a haystack, and everything in her is screaming. _Monstrous_ , something whispers in the back of her mind. _Greedy, selfish, cruel._

There’s a scuff of boots on stone, and Blue jerks back so violently that Tauriel scratches her cheek. It’s Kíli. He stands quite still, one hand pressed against the wall, his eyes wide and lips parted at the sight of them. Blue lets out a cry, a little gasping sound, because the look on his face makes her feel as if she’s just been punched in the gut.

She doesn’t wait to see what Tauriel does. She turns on her heel and bolts.

She only gets halfway lost before she finally stumbles, presses her back against a wall, and bursts into wretched tears.

.

.

.

She’s packing when the soft knock comes at her door. She knows precisely who it is before he even gets near the door. Every single one of her dwarves has a distinct way of walking, and she knows Kíli’s the best. Blue pauses for a moment, and then closes the straps on her pack and pulls them tight.

“I know you’re in there,” he says. His voice is muffled through the wood. “I can hear you.”

She tugs the mithril shirt over her tunic, and pulls her hair free of the collar.

“I’ll stand here as long as it takes,” he says. “Alone. And in pain. Because you won’t open the door.”

Worry hits her hard. Then she squashes it. Kíli is nearly well, and they both know it. He just has convenient relapses.

On the other side of the door, she hears him let out a breath. “Blue,” he says, quieter this time. “Please?”

She clenches her hands into tight fists. Then Blue turns on her heel, and yanks the door open. He’s leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, and his eyebrows lift jauntily when he sees her. “Hello,” he says. “I thought you might be trying this.”

“Trying what?” says Blue, and tightens her hand on the doorknob. Kíli taps against the door with his boot.

“Try to run off.” He tightens his fingers against his side. “I told Tauriel I wanted to talk to you first. About the bow, and you…” He gestures at the pack on her bed. “She didn’t listen. She’s a bit reckless.”

Blue sniffles. “Sounds familiar.”

“Me? Reckless? Dunno what you’re talking about.” He grins at her, unsure but game. “C’n I come in?”

She throws her hands in the air, and turns away from the door, heading back to the bed. Kíli creeps over her threshold, peering at the vase of dried flowers she keeps on her bedside table. Blue fusses with the contents of her pack rather than look at him, because the silence is tugging at her heart in a way she hates.

“Tauriel thinks you’re angry with her,” he says abruptly, and Blue pauses in her fidgeting. There’s something odd about his voice, about the puzzlement of it. She’s heard Kíli puzzled before, but not like this. Not this confused.

“I’m not,” she says finally, and folds the bedroll again. “I thought—I thought you would be furious with me.”

Kíli goes quiet at that. Blue returns to her packing, dropping her bag to the floor and making the bed with strict, efficient movements. She doesn’t understand why he’s not livid, like nothing’s different, like she didn’t just ruin it all.

“Blue,” he says. “Look at me, please.”

Her hands still against the coverlet. Blue glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and then looks down at the pillows.

“Please don’t. I’m not angry with you.” He bites his lip. “I could—I’d never be angry with you, Blue.”

“That’s impossible,” she says, flatly. “Everyone’s angry sometimes.”

He shrugs. “Well, that might be true, but not right now. Might be frustrated, a bit, but I’m not angry. And neither is Tauriel, before you ask.”

She resettles Sting on her blanket, and doesn’t look up. All of a sudden, he stands beside her. Kíli closes a hand over hers, gently, his thumb swiping a circle against the back of her wrist. The hair on the back of her neck stands up, and she holds her breath before it starts to shake.  

“Blue,” he says. Then, softly: “Bluebell Baggins, please look at me.”

She will not cry. She _will not cry_. Blue blinks furiously to clear her sight, and peeks at him. Kíli strokes her wrist with his thumb, searching her face. Then he sighs, and says, “Oh, Blue. We’ve mucked this up, haven’t we?”

Her lip trembles. Blue ducks her head to hide her face, and suddenly Kíli’s pulled her into him. He smells more strongly of rosemary oil than he ever did before—the consequence, she thinks, of having it so near at hand, when it had been so dear in the past—but it’s soothing. She hiccups into his shoulder, and squeezes her eyes shut.

“Hey,” he says into her hair. “C’mon, Blue, please? Don’t cry.”

“I’m _not_ crying.”

“That’s a relief, because tears make me all discombobulated and terrible. You can ask Fíli.”

She hiccups again, but it’s half a laugh, this time. Her heart seems to be shivering inside her. Kíli mumbles something in Khuzdul, and then runs his fingers through her hair. She leans into him and breathes hard until she settles again. It takes longer than she’ll ever admit.

“Look,” Kíli says, once she’s finished. “Can we talk to you together? Me and Tauriel? Only I think it’d be better if—if it’s all of us at once, rather than a mix-up.” He lifts his hands to her face, swiping a tear away with his first knuckle. “Can we talk about it? Please.”

Blue searches his eyes. He’s so very dear; the bruise under her breastbone begins to ache. Then she sighs. “You’re not angry?”

He scoffs, and kisses her forehead. “No. I’ll get Tauriel. Don’t run off.”

“It’d be easier if I did,” she mutters under her breath. Kíli, of course, catches it; he turns on the threshold, and points at her.

“Don’t you move.”

“Fine,” Blue says, and sits down on the bed. Kíli stares at her for a second or two, and then hurries off down the hall. Blue grips Sting by the hilt for a moment—it gives her courage, somehow—and waits.

Tauriel must have been hiding somewhere nearby, because they’re back within five minutes. Tauriel’s eyes are dark; she gazes at Blue for a moment, and then turns her face aside, and Kíli tugs her sleeve lightly before pushing the door shut behind them. It’s terribly improper, Blue thinks, but then again the whole of Erebor knows that the three of them spend whole days alone in the abandoned parts of the mountain. A shut door isn’t going to make much difference.

“There’s. Um. Not really anywhere to sit,” she says, and slips off the bed. Her pack squats on the covers like a pustule, and she hates it for the way it makes Tauriel’s mouth tighten, the way Kíli can’t quite look at it. “I can move things about, if you like.”

“We’re fine,” says Kíli, slanting a glance at Tauriel. Tauriel tilts her head at him, but then she meets Blue’s eyes again, and nods before taking the edge of the trunk. Blue sinks down onto the corner of the bed, and Kíli—of course Kíli, because Kíli can’t stand awkward moments—flings himself onto the mattress and lies flat on her other side, plucking at the back of her tunic with his fingertips.

“You look as if you’re waiting to be swallowed by a dragon.”

Blue wrinkles her nose. “I’ve faced that,” she tells him tartly, “and that’s not half so worrying as this.” That’s a blatant lie, of course, but it makes Tauriel’s lips twitch. Kíli lets out a bark of a laugh that reminds her of the days on the road, when they were all so much freer, so much brighter and uncaring.

“I’m sorry,” Blue blurts, and clenches her hands tight in the hem of her tunic. “I did not—I didn’t mean to make things so difficult. I didn’t want to—to avoid you or cause trouble, not like this. I shouldn’t—you’re dear to me, very dear, both of you, and I’d not hurt either of you, not for the world—”

“It is I who should be apologizing,” says Tauriel in a hoarse voice. “I am the one who frightened you enough to make you think you had to leave us, when you have done nothing wrong.”

“And if we’re going to have a competition, I’ll say sorry for burning the back of your traveling cloak in Rivendell,” says Kíli. Blue frowns at him.

“That was _you_?”

“It was an accident.”

“It took me two weeks to embroider over the damage!”

“Fíli knocked into me and I dropped it.” He peeks up at her. “I’m a dunce?”

“You’re a dunce,” she agrees. “A very charming dunce, but a dunce nonetheless.”

“Noted. And that has nothing to do with this,” he adds. Kíli sits up and takes her hands, prying her fingers free of her tunic gently, so very, very gently. There are calluses on his fingertips and his palms, and they feel delightfully rough against her skin. “I have a lot to apologize for, Blue. For assuming. For—for thinking you knew. For not explaining properly.”

Blue starts to pull her fingers away. Kíli squeezes them, just a little, and she stops, darting a terrified look at Tauriel. Tauriel has slipped off the edge of the trunk, and come to crouch beside them; she hesitates, and then reaches out and covers Kíli and Blue’s tangled hands with her own. There are calluses on hers, too, but her fingers are long and delicate, her nails smooth and ovular. “Miss Baggins,” she says. “May I ask—what is it hobbits do, when they have someone they care for?”

“When they’re courting, you mean?” Blue can’t quite look away from the tangle of their hands, Tauriel’s and Kíli’s and hers. Someone is running a fingertip down the veins in her wrist, but she can’t quite tell which of them it is. It’s making it terribly difficult to think. “Well. Um. I mean, it’s—it’s not so different from other races, I think. They—they walk together. And—and talk, and things. And if one’s daring they’ll bring the other flowers, or something like it. Gifts, to show regard.”

Tauriel nods once, eyes intent on Blue’s face. Kíli’s watching too, his gaze flicking back and forth between them. She swallows. “And—well, I mean, if—if things go well, then—then there’s a formal suit, one put to the other’s family. Usually after the pair of them agree that—that that’s what they’d like.”

“The two agree, privately, first?” Tauriel asks, cocking her head, and Blue nods.

“Not to ask your partner first is—is very forward indeed.”

“Well, what if someone else is already there?” Kíli frowns. “Do they ask their family, too?”

“Oh, no!” Blue closes her eyes tight. “No, no, there are no—if someone has already laid a claim, then it’s too late. They don’t say anything. Love triangles can cause feuds for decades. We—we try not to have those.”

Kíli and Tauriel exchange a long, eloquent look. Then Kíli tugs one of his hands free of their tangle, and scuffs it through his hair, muttering in Khuzdul. Tauriel looks amused, in a sad sort of way. She folds her hands over Blue’s, thoughtfully. “It is different among the elves,” she says. “No one person can be everything to another. No one person is meant to be. There is no shame in admitting this to anyone. We are not like dwarrow, to feel the Longing and accede to it, but…” She struggles for a moment. “Our hearts know quickly, if one is a good fit for us. It is the only reason I left you free, that night in the Elvenking’s halls. You looked up at me and I knew that if I listened to you, I could find something—important. Something beloved.”

Her mind is blank. Blue stares. Tauriel searches her face, and then looks at Kíli, a curl of desperation tugging at her lips. Kíli touches his fingertips to Blue’s cheek, and sighs.

“We’ve ruined it, haven’t we?” he says, in a low voice. Blue closes her eyes at the softness of it. He’s not supposed to do this. He’s not supposed to _do_ this. “Me and Tauriel. We didn’t mean to, but we thought you knew. We thought…well, we thought you liked us.”

“Of course I like you,” says Blue, puzzled. “You’re my best friend. And Tauriel—” her throat closes. “Tauriel is very dear.”

Kíli huffs out a laugh, and slides his hand around to cup the back of her neck, knocking his head against hers. “Not what I meant.”

It takes a moment for it to click. Blue blinks. Then she blinks again. “Oh.”

“Yes,” says Kíli, and it sounds like he’s laughing at her. “ _Oh_.”

“But—” she leans back, and looks from Kíli to Tauriel and back again. “But I thought—”

“I don’t know what you feel,” says Kíli, dropping a hand to his breastbone, “but—but there’s a thing we call the Longing, like Tauriel said. Sometimes it’s only for one person, sometimes it’s for more, but it’s like—” He makes an impatient noise. “Well, like it sounds. Like—like there’s a band running from me to you. Like there’s—like I need to be closer. The knowledge I can’t—I can’t _not_ be closer.” He tips her chin up. “Do you see?”

She sees stars, is what she sees. “But—I don’t—”

“Blue, I put a _braid_ in your hair,” he says. “You know how we are! That means something. I thought you knew!”

“I thought it was just—” She tugs at the braid, at the three beads. “You said it marked me as a friend of Erebor!”

“It does, but it’s—” He huffs at her again, and then hooks a finger around the braid, drawing it over her shoulder. “Friend of Erebor,” he says, pointing at the first bead, the one marked with a flickering garnet. “And an ally to dwarrow, yes, no dwarf would deny you shelter or aid with you wearing this one, but this one—” He taps at the bead with the flower motif. “This one is just for _you_ , Blue. I thought you’d put it together, after talking to Dori about—about the different sorts of braids, and beads and things.”

She gapes. Blue lifts the end of the braid up to her eyes, and peers at the carved flower bead. It’s copper to the Ereborian silver and the gold of the dwarf-friend bead, and much more artful, wire woven into a delicate twisting pattern. Then she scowls at Kíli, and shoves him with her shoulder. “D’you mean to tell me that I’ve been wearing something this important since Rivendell and _you didn’t think to tell me what it meant_?”

Tauriel chokes, and covers her mouth with one hand. Her eyes have crinkled up into a smile. Kíli flushes the most interesting shade of red, his ears going crimson, and he ducks his head to hide from her. Blue shoves him again. “Ooh—I could _bite_ you, I really could!”

“Promise?” he says wickedly, and she pushes him so hard he almost falls off the bed.

“Then you—” Her face is so hot it _burns_. She wheels around to look at Tauriel. “And _you_ —”

“I would have come for you,” says Tauriel. She reaches out with one hand and rubs a curl of Blue’s hair between her fingers. “Even if I had not met Kíli. Even if you had never shown yourself, I would have known. I felt you in the halls and I knew even in the beginning that the dwarves invading our woods bore something that would become—” She hooks the strand of hair behind Blue’s ear, swiping her thumb over Blue’s cheekbone. “But then you spoke to me of dragons, and had you asked I would have followed you then. I would have left the Elvenking’s halls without qualm because _you_ asked, little _aew._ ”

Blue buries her face in her hands. It’s too red to be seen. Tauriel cards her fingers through Blue’s hair, and then touches her lips to Blue’s temple. “We should have asked,” she says. “The pair of us. Forgive us. We thought you knew.”

She makes a muffled sound behind her palms, and wonders if her heart is going to explode.

“Don’t,” says Kíli. “Don’t hide.” He draws her hands away from her face; he presses one to his heart, which is beating very quickly, and the other he lifts to his mouth. She thinks she might faint, or—she doesn’t even know anymore. He peeks at her through his eyelashes, and she can _see_ the smirk on his mouth as he touches his lips to her knuckles, then to the tips of her fingers. Tauriel has not drawn back, and the hand she’s left on Blue’s back steadies her, grounds her. “Don’t hide from us, please,” he says, and she melts back into Tauriel’s palm. "Don’t ever hide, not from us.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, goodness.”

“ _Aew_ ,” says Tauriel, and when Blue turns Tauriel puts her mouth very gently against the curve of Blue’s cheekbone. Blue shivers in spite of herself; it’s just as she felt in the undercity, the damp warmth of her, the smell of sage and leather and growing things. Tauriel brushes a kiss against the scratch on Blue’s jaw, then to the corner of Blue’s mouth, and then draws back, and Blue follows her in spite of herself. She’s flaming, and she can’t help it. Kíli’s eyes are very large and very dark as he watches, and it should feel strange, knowing that, but it doesn’t, it _doesn’t_.

Tauriel kisses the way a star falls, blazingly. She cups Blue’s head in her hand and presses their mouths together, and Blue lets out a little sound at the burn of it, the aching warmth of it. She can feel Kíli’s heart hitch against her palm, and he scoots closer, pressing his hip bold against hers. Blue’s been kissed before, awkward and silly behind barns and haystacks, but nothing like this, _nothing_ like this; Tauriel tips her head and tugs lightly on Blue’s lower lip with her teeth and Blue _moans_ , startling and deep. Her breathing catches. Then Tauriel draws back, and Kíli leans forward, and he’s kissing her now, sudden and sweet in comparison to Tauriel’s slow burn, touching his tongue to her swelling lower lip and slanting his mouth deeper into hers. Blue tangles her hands in his hair and breathes him in the way she’s been wanting to for months, _months_.

He draws back when she can’t quite catch her breath anymore, and then nudges her temple with his nose, touching his lips to her hair. “Blue,” he says, “Blue, Blue, Blue.”

Then Tauriel cups Kíli’s chin in her hand, leans forward, and kisses him, and Blue is swamped with the glory of it. She’s _burning_ , she feels like an ember or a star, and she licks her lips and realizes she can taste both of them in her mouth. Kíli leans back first, laughing a little, barely breathing.

“That,” says Blue, and then stops. “That was. Well.”

“ _Well_ ,” says Tauriel, smiling, and joins them on the bed, lying back and smiling at the ceiling. Her hand catches in Blue’s, and twines their fingers. Blue should be overwhelmed by the size of it, but she isn’t, really. Hobbits have long, clever fingers, and even if Tauriel’s palm is a bit larger than hers, it’s not overwhelming. She gulps a little, and looks at Kíli again, and he grins shyly at her before drawing her forward into the curve of him. She fits there, lying back against him, propped up between his knees. Tauriel shifts without qualm and lounges on the bed, her hair spread out around her.

“Does this mean you’re saying yes?” says Kíli after a bit, and she turns to peek at him out of the corner of her eye. “To both of us? Because there are words and things we can say and I can put another braid in your hair, and Tauriel can too, but, I mean. If you don’t want to—”

“I want to.” Her heart is swollen to bursting. “I want them. I do. Please. Yes. _Yes_.”

Kíli catches her chin in one hand and kisses her again. She’s twisted a little, but it’s more than worth the discomfort. Then Blue, feeling daring, bends down to kiss Tauriel, who leans up into her with a smile. There’s a fairly lovely time when no words are exchanged at all, and it ends them settled again, Tauriel’s head resting on Blue’s thigh, Kíli’s chin on Blue’s shoulder. She’s caught between them so deliciously that she thinks she could spend the rest of her days without moving, right here, forever.

“Whose idea was the bow?” she asks, when she has enough reason back in her head to manage it. Kíli snickers.

“Tauriel’s. But I made the caps and the arrows, even if she carved it. We worked for ages, as soon as we decided we wanted you with us. Weeks.” He smirks a little. “She was very put out when she realized you didn’t actually know how to use it.”

“Truly,” says Tauriel lazily, her fingertips ghosting circles around Blue’s ankle, “it was very wrong of you to leave her undefended, even as she bore your bead, son of Erebor.”

“She could throw knives! And she would never let me, you heard her—”

“Very wrong,” says Tauriel again, teasing. Her eyes catch Blue’s and hold. “You will not deny me, will you, little _aew_?”

“I think denying you would be a very bad idea,” says Blue. _“Either_ of you.”

“And we would never deny you,” says Tauriel. Kíli nods. “Not anything.”

Her heart feels swollen, gathering up against her throat, stealing her voice. Her breathing stutters a bit. Blue swallows hard and tips her head back to lean against Kíli’s shoulder, and Tauriel rolls over to tangle their hands together again. She doesn’t know what to say. She feels…full, somehow, as if holes she never knew existed have been covered, or buried deep.

“Can we agree,” she says, once she trusts her voice again, “that nobody assumes that the other two know something obvious? Not ever again?”

Tauriel snorts. “I think we can all gladly promise that.”

“Durin, _yes_.” She can feel Kíli’s breath against her ear. “And you have to promise that if—if you ever feel like you’re—you’re mixed up or frightened or anything, tell us. Please. Don’t—don’t feel like you have to run away.”

Tauriel’s fingers pause in their patterns on Blue’s ankle, and then begin again. It feels as though she’s tracing out an elf-knot in the skin there, one that Blue doesn’t quite recognize. Blue lets out a puff of air. “I’m a hobbit,” she says. “We’re very good at being worried.”

“I’m serious, Blue.” He chews his lower lip a little. “I know that—well, you said hobbits don’t have triads, and that means it’ll be—hard, for a little while, but please promise me that you’ll tell us, if you’re ever…overwhelmed.”

“Not just Kíli,” says Tauriel. “We must all promise. We are all…different, and it will lead to conflict. The only way this can work is if we are open, and honest, and come together with willing hearts.” She turns over onto her belly, and there’s _such_ a smile playing around her mouth, just on the delightful side of filthy. “Come together in _all_ ways, mind.”

Blue chokes. Kíli laughs, and it’s the sort she’s never heard before, low and husky. It sets fire to her again, and she rocks her head so she can press her nose and lips and tongue to his neck. Kíli gasps, and she can feel his throat against her teeth. Blue pulls back, and looks at him breathlessly. “I can promise that, I think.”

Kíli makes a high-pitched whining sound in the back of his throat, and just looks at her. He seems a bit gobsmacked. Blue giggles in spite of herself. She’s never seen him so shocked, and it feels as though someone’s set fireworks alight in her belly, to know that she’s the one who did it.

Tauriel laughs, rough. “A promise, then. Between the three of us.”

“Yeah,” says Kíli. His voice cracks. “Promise.”

Giddiness makes her fingers tremble. Blue lifts her hands to Kíli’s cheeks and presses a kiss to his mouth, light and sweet. It’s not light and sweet by the time it finishes, and it leaves her panting, but she turns and kisses Tauriel in turn, because Tauriel has raised herself onto her hands and knees and is waiting for it very patiently with eyes that burn. Her mouth feels bee-stung when she leans back, and she tangles her fingers in Kíli’s hair as Tauriel leans up and drags her nose up the tendons in Kíli’s throat, setting her lips to the hollow under his earlobe, then to the soft spot under his jaw before finally meeting his mouth. Kíli makes a desperate sound and reaches up to touch her, but Tauriel has already drawn back, leaning to whisper to Blue.

“Beneath his ear, there,” she says. “The line of his jaw. And his palm. He will do anything you want, if you only kiss him there.”

Kíli flushes scarlet. “ _Tauriel_.”

Tauriel’s eyes flick up. “Do I lie?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then I do not see—”  

Blue turns and lifts her head just enough to touch the tip of her tongue against the delicate point of Tauriel’s ear, and Tauriel goes _boneless_. In the part of her brain that hasn’t just turned to mush at the realization of it, Blue notes that elf ears and hobbit ones are much the same, and stores this information away for later usage. She blows just a smidgen of air against the tip, and then draws back, and warmth and pleasure wash over her when she catches the look on Tauriel’s face. “Turnabout,” she says, “is fair play.”

“ _Stars_ ,” says Tauriel.

“See, Blue? You can’t leave.” Kíli sets his nose behind her ear, thankfully just missing the tip. “You have to at least teach me how to do that before you go.”

“I’m sure we can find other things for you to do, as well,” says Tauriel, and it would be quite casual if she could keep her voice from breaking. Blue’s heart is overflowing.

“I’m not going,” she says, and Kíli sighs. Tauriel leans into her shoulder, and breathes. “I won’t. Not unless you want me to.”

“A bargain, then,” says Kíli. “The three of us.”

“For as long as you like, _aew_ ,” says Tauriel.

 _Forever, maybe._ It’s on the tip of her tongue. She doesn’t speak it. “A bargain, then,” she says.

There’s more they ought to talk about, truly. More that they should be doing. There’s the mountain to think about, Thorin and Thranduil and the Shire, but she doesn’t want to think of them, now. Blue breathes in the scent of Kíli’s skin and touches her hand to Tauriel’s hair, and nods once. “It’s a bargain.”

And with that, she is lost.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I unexpectedly REALLY LOVE THIS TRIO and I have no shame.
> 
> ....yeah.
> 
> Also in my headcanons the bow was actually technically a true courting proposal. But they decided to hold off on telling Blue that until later. Because...yeah.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gentle Kisses, Warm Liquids, Deep Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7369294) by [TeaDrinkerBarrelRider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaDrinkerBarrelRider/pseuds/TeaDrinkerBarrelRider)
  * [Far Worse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10411014) by [PeachyKeen_WithCream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyKeen_WithCream/pseuds/PeachyKeen_WithCream)




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